An Overview of Complexity Theory in Discrete Optimization: Part II. Results and Implications

Abstract
Over the past decade, complexity theory has emerged from a branch of computer science almost unknown in the operations research community into a topic of widespread interest and research. Part I of this tutorial overview of the subject (TRANSACTIONS, March 1982) developed important background concepts of the theory. This paper uses that background to define and investigate the implications of NP-Hardness, NP-Completeness, NP-Equivalency, the NP≠NP conjecture, and various approximations.